America Losing Influence in Central Asia?

Is the real goal of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to curb the growing influence of the USA in the Central Asian region? Is the SCO now becoming more of a political and security entity – a Russo-Chinese version of NATO? Or, is SCO concerned primarily with the economic interests of the member countries?

These questions popped up when the SCO Summit was held at Shanghai last month. The presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who attended as an observer, and the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, led to considerable speculation.

The SCO is an intergovernmental international organization founded in Shanghai, China, on June 15, 2001. It now comprises China, Russia and the four Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Four nations – Iran, Mongolia, India and Pakistan – have observer status.

The grouping seemed to benefit all its members, says the BBC.

“For China, one of the issues was the energy resources it was competing for to fuel its growing economy. Russia and Central Asia could provide them. China in return could provide a market for trade. And for Central Asian governments, Russia and China represented support without questions over issues such as human rights.

“But as the organisation’s scope has widened, it has come to be seen as a way for China and Russia to limit US influence in the strategically important Central Asian region.”

Yet another point of view : “Though the declaration on the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization contained a statement that it ‘is not an alliance directed against other states and regions and it adheres to the principle of openness’, most observers believe that one of the original purposes of the SCO was to serve as a counterbalance to the United States and in particular to avoid conflicts that would allow the United States to intervene in areas near both Russia and China.

“Many observers also believe that the organization was formed as a direct response to the threat of missile defense systems by the United States, after the United States reversed course in its nuclear policy and began promoting National Missile Defense.”

And, finally, thanks to Holly, I read another important article “Born of America’s Indifference, Eurasian Alliance Comes of Age” by M. K. Bhadrakumar in Forward. This is a thoughtful piece and deserves attention.

“The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is the only major international organization from which the United States is excluded.
The organization rebuffed an American attempt last year to gain observer status, while granting such status to Mongolia, Pakistan, India and, perhaps most irritatingly to Washington, Iran.

“To all appearances, perhaps, anti-Americanism in action — a Chinese-Russian alliance built to rival NATO and working for the elimination of American influence in Central Asia. Washington, in this view, must somehow render the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ineffectual, and the sooner the better.

“Curiously, there is hardly any effort to assess the alliance’s raison d’etre outside of an American prism — even though the ‘Shanghai spirit’ was in the air before the current chill in Washington’s relations with Moscow and Beijing, before the September 11 terrorist attacks, before the establishment of an American military presence in Central Asia, before the American intervention in Afghanistan and before the American-backed color revolutions in Moscow’s backyard.”

Perhaps time to ponder why the US administration’s foreign policy fails to find real friends abroad and increase its real sphere of influence.